After missing state funding cut, Business 40 project to vie for regional, division funds

Now that the $60 million overhaul of Business 40 in Winston-Salem has missed the cut for top-tier state funding, Twin City officials are mobilizing efforts to compete for transportation dollars at the regional and division levels.

Pat Ivey, engineer for the state Department of Transportation's Division 9, which covers Forsyth County, said that his division will work with the local metropolitan planning organization to assign input points to up the score of the Business 40 project over a 90-day period that begins June 2. The goal is to still begin construction in 2016 on the Business 40 project, which will repair a 1-mile segment of U.S. 421/Business 40 from Fourth Street to Church Street downtown.

Local officials originally hoped that Business 40 would make the statewide cut for funding because projects in that category share in 40 percent of available state funding. Meanwhile, the regional and division categories of projects receive 30 percent of available transportation revenue, but there are more projects competing for a smaller share of funds.

As a statewide mobility project, Business 40 earned 38.7 out of a total of 100 points, which wasn’t too far below 44.2, the lowest number of points assigned to projects that made the statewide cut for funding, Ivey said. The two final sections of Greensboro's urban loop made the statewide list and each scored 53.56 points.

At the regional level, Business 40 earned 33.28 points out of 70 possible points while it earned 26 out of 50 possible points at the division level. Ivey said his division will work to up the score at both the regional and division level.

"We are doing everything we can to maximize the potential of this project," Ivey said.

Twin City transportation officials are moving forward on plans for a project whose construction plans had previously been moved up to 2016, instead of 2018.

But under Gov. Pat McCrory’s transportation reform that prioritizes road projects, the Business 40 project needed to be reevaluated under a competitive system that affects funding for road work slated for construction after July 1, 2015.